‘DID WONDERFUL THING’
B’klyn train vic’s wife says he ignored her advice, acted as peacemaker
Jakeba Dockery met her husband, Richard Henderson, 29 years ago — and on Sunday, he was gone, fatally shot after ignoring his wife’s advice that he stop being a peacemaker on Brooklyn streets and subways.
“He did a wonderful thing — he was doing what I asked him not to do,” Dockery said Wednesday.
Her advice to him was: “Please don’t intervene. Please keep going.”
“He said ‘No, you have to help,’ and that’s what cost him his life.
“For 29 years he made it home to me,” Dockery said. “He was a hero. He was our protector.”
“We took a big loss with this one,” she said.
Henderson’s friends and family gathered at his family’s Flatbush home on Wednesday to remember and reminisce — sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but always speaking about the man killed on the No. 3 train with admiration and disbelief
“I met him in 1994,” said Dockery, 42. “I was 13, he was 16.”
The couple married 20 years ago.
“This is hard for me, too,” said Henderson’s brother Earl Ford, 55. “This is hard for all of us.”
“My brother and I had a bond,” said Ford. “I have a birthmark on my chest, it goes to the right. My baby brother has the same birthmark, and it goes to the left.”
Henderson, 45, was fatally shot about 8:15 p.m. on Sunday as he headed home on a No. 3 train after watching a football playoff game with friends, said police. Henderson boarded the train with one of his friends at the Pennsylvania Ave. station in East New York. The shooter boarded at the next stop, Junius St., cops said.
The gunman started arguing with a fellow rider over loud music, and Henderson tried to talk the men out of quarreling, police sources said.
Instead, the shooter opened fire twice in Henderson’s direction as the train approached the Rockaway Ave. stop, cops said. Investigators are uncertain if the shooter was aiming at the victim or the man the gunman was arguing with, sources said.
The shooter got off the train at Rockaway Ave. while Henderson’s pal fled to another car, apparently looking for help, the sources said.
Henderson, a father and grandfather, was also a beloved crossing guard at Avenues: The World School in Manhattan for 10 years, where his kind and generous demeanor was missed this week, with students, parents and staff alike mourning his loss.
“It really warmed our hearts,” said Dockery of the outpouring of love from the Chelsea school where her husband worked. “I’ve heard they’re even considering naming a street after him, Richard’s Way,” she said, “He was a hell of a friend,” said Michael Lipscomb, 50, who had known Henderson since he was a tot.
Henderson and his friends watched “Sunday Night Football” together each week, switching houses depending on the team playing.
“I walked him to the train,” said Lipscomb. “It was, ‘See you next week.’ ... Next week was supposed to be at my house.”
“Either way the party’s done. I don’t even care,” said Lipscomb.
“I met Richard in the fourth grade,” said Herbert Williams, 45. “I transferred schools and he was that friend, like, ‘We’re going to do this together’, and we’ve been best friends since, for 35 years.”
The group was watching football at Williams’ home before the fatal encounter.
“He was with us in the last few minutes,” said Williams. “He just left us. And what caused him to lose his life is what’s naturally in him.”
“I believe I can never find that again. Ever. I will never have that real, brotherly bond that I had with him,” said Williams.
“He held everything together,” said Lipscomb.
“We’re going to get justice,” said Dockery.
Family and friends have lots of questions about Henderson’s final moments, and Dockery feels let down by the city and Mayor Adams, saying he had promised more officers on the subways.
“Where was the cops?” asked Dockery. “Why did it take so long for my husband to get help? He bled out on a train,
“We were just talking about [how] our kids are grown, we can travel more, do more things,” said Dockery. “Now I’m a widow. It just sounds so weird.”